Migrants on the Hungarian-Serbian Border

Photographer: Szilard Koszticsak

A group of migrants from Afghanistan live these days on the Serb side of the Serbian-Hungarian border, near Subotica, waiting for human smugglers to lead them across the border line into Hungary, an European Union member state.

As the Hungarian-Serbian border is identical with the border of the Schengen zone, Hungarian authorities patrol the frontier region permanently to prevent illegal migrants crossing the border. On a daily basis dozens of would-be immigrants are caught by border police and the voluntary organization of civil guards in a narrow border region south of Szeged, 170 km south of Budapest.

Most migrants coming from Asia and Africa, hoping to escape economic crisis, poverty or war, try to reach their dreamlands, the rich western countries of the EU to find better living conditions and life safety.

In Csongrad County alone, which extends on around half of the whole length of the border line with Serbia, some 25,500 illegal migrants were caught between 01 January and 30 November 2014 as compared with the 17,475 migrants caught in the whole year of 2013.